LONDON, May 8 (UPI) -- British oil company BP PLC said Tuesday it named an overseer to monitor safety upgrades at its five U.S. refineries in line with Baker panel recommendations.
Duane Wilson -- a retired vice president of ConocoPhillips Co. who sat on the 11-member panel chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker -- will track the company's U.S. plant safety performance and report annually to the BP board for at least five years, the London company said.
The Baker panel made the recommendation -- one of 10 it made in January -- after finding "material process safety deficiencies" at all five U.S. refineries.
BP promised to implement all 10 recommendations.
A board committee will produce a publicly available report based on Wilson's assessment of BP's progress.
The Baker panel's recommendations followed a March 23, 2005, explosion and fire that killed 15 contract workers and injured 180 others at BP's Texas City, Texas, refinery, near Houston -- in the worst U.S. industrial accident since 1990.
The move came a week after BP Chief Executive John Browne resigned, after admitting he lied to a court over how he had met Canadian Jeff Chevalier, with whom he had a four-year relationship.
